If you have not read:
- My 7 day Solo Trip to Sydney from Bengaluru! – Part 1
- My 7 day Solo Trip to Sydney from Bengaluru! – Part 2
– Day 0 and 1 – My 1 week trip to Australia
This part is in continuation of the above series.
DAY 2: 12th November 2019, Tuesday
I slept really well and got up at around 9 AM. Free breakfast timings: 8:00-10:00 AM.
I refreshed myself and went to the kitchen.
After looking at the items there, I got confused again. There were 2-3 types of bread with different types of spreads: Jam – Strawberry, Peanut Butter, White Butter, Hazelnut spread, Vegemite (I read about this earlier. It is found only in Australia, it’s a very salty spread).
There were 5 litre milk containers, hot oats with milk and hot sweet beans. There was a white thick stuff (which I came to know on Day 3 that it’s frigging yoghurt!) and some yellow cut fruits and cornflakes. Total English breakfast.
The culture of the hostel is like you pick your plates, cups and spoons and get all the stuff you want to eat and put it on your plates, eat it in common area and then wash them and put them back to their own place.
The trick here is to have a heavy breakfast so that it keeps you full till 1 PM or 2 PM.
Do not hesitate to ask questions and talk to people. Everyone has a story. For example, my roommates were from Japan and Chile. The guy from Chile was drunk the whole time and was in full-on party-party-party mode.
The guy from Japan came there to search for work.
By the way, did you know that Japanese working people bath at night?
I was done with breakfast. I packed my essentials in the bag and left hostel at 11 AM. It was 28 degrees that day. Again I went to the same nearby Coles supermarket to buy sunscreen.
It’s very important to apply at-least SPF 50+ sunscreen in Australia every single day!
I bought 200 ml Coles Sunscreen for 6.50 AUD. This will last you for a week for two people. Donate it to hostel’s reception if extra is left at the end of your trip.
Time was now 11:30 AM. I then caught a bus (remember to Tap on Tap Off your OPAL card) to reach Hyde Park and then I walked around 1.8 km (20 minutes) from there to reach my first destination: “The Opera House”.
Do not start snapping the pictures as soon as your reach Opera House. But this is what I did exactly J.
At the very end of this day’s experience, I will explain from where you can get the best shots of Opera House based on the time you reach.
The Opera House is majestic. There’s a fee to go inside and take a tour but I was not interested in that.
I went ahead and was glaring at the majestic beauty of Opera House. Just next to Opera House is: “The Harbour Bridge”.
Both of the structures are amazing.
You can snap photos and videos here. There a circular walkable lively portion which connects Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
This circular area also has a major railway station and ferry point: “Circular Quay” (pronounced as Circular “key”). It has bars, restaurants, cafe’s, birds and is a good area to walk around.
From Circular Quay you can catch bus/light rail, ferries to reach other parts of Sydney and metro trains. You will find youself returning to Circular Quay many times during your stay at Sydney.
There are two more locations here Customs House and Museum of Contemporary Art which can be visited.
When it was around 2 PM, I decided to go to this burger place: Hungry Jacks. I had a vegetarian burger – Rebel Whopper for 10.5 AUD. It was filling burger.
There’s a room next to it where you can sit and eat. I again filled up my water bottle. Tap water is drinkable in Sydney. If you feel hesitation in filling the bottle from toilet taps, you can ask any shop owner and they will be happy to fill your bottle with a smile.
If you walk around the Circular Quay, you will reach here: [this is another place to snap pictures]
Just after this also there’s another good point for snaps.
The place under Harbour bridge is also good for taking pictures like this:
Solo travelling involves talking to other people. While I was eating in Hungry Jacks, I talked to a couple who came from London and was there for 3 days and they then headed out to Melbourne. I asked them what all places you have covered. I told them it was my first trip. They wished me all the best for my trip.
There are Gelato ice-cream shops in Circular-Quay but hold on to your sweet tooth; I will let you know the best of the desserts in Sydney to have Gelato and other stuff.
I really enjoyed that area. You can imagine this by the fact that I reached Opera House at 12:40 PM and was in this area till 4 PM.
From Opera house, I went to Royal Botanical Garden, it’s a very nice place to sit and relax.
The Government House is inside Royal Botanical Garden. It closed out at 3:30 PM and you need to have passport with you to visit. So, I took a picture from the front gate and then while walking back I was deciding where to go next.
The winter season in India is summer season in Australia. This also means the sun sets at around 7:30 to 8 PM.
This gives travellers like us a lot of time to travel and cover things. But for me since this was Day 1, I was in no hurry to cover thing. I was on a holiday and I wanted to relax and enjoy. So I have covered things at my own pace.
Till the time I left Botanical Garden it was around 4:45. I took at short bus ride to Hyde Park which was around 2.1 km from the location.
You can see multiple things at one shot here:
First is “Archibald Fountain”:
And just behind it is “St. Mary’s Cathedral”:
From the view, it seems that this is the front, but this is the side view of St. Mary’s Cathederal which I came to know later on in the evening.
The time was 5:20 PM. I then walked to Art Gallery of New South Wales and snapped a couple of pictures there. It was closed by the time I reached there:
While walking back to Hyde’s Park, I saw that there’s some area at the back of Art Gallery of NSW. I went there and saw that there’s an underground metro link there and a huge playground.
There’s a cafe next to Art Gallery of NSW which really looks instagramable:
I had my peanuts and 1 banana sitting at a distance here. Filled my water bottle and started walking again for 1 km where I reached the front side of St. Mary’s Cathedral:
I went back to Hyde’s Park on foot and reached Anzac War Memorial. I reached there at 6:30 PM.
This is the backside of Anzac Memorial. Go to the front side.
Since I was already tired, I sat on one of benches in front of Anzac Memorial and again I really liked sitting there. Reason? There were steps leading to memorial and water was falling over them and with little breeze of wind the water from these steps was lightly splashing my face.
I was here till 7:30 PM. This photo was snapped at 7:26 PM.
From there I was searching again where should I actually go? I remembered that there’s market nearby called as Chinatown market. Great for people who love Chinese food.
I reached there around 7:45 PM and it is literally the place to get Chinese food. I spent around 1 hour here.
I also spent 10 minutes inside a mall there (Market City). Restaurants were grand:
The time was around 9 PM and I searched for vegetarian options again on Google Maps.
I found a place on Google Maps: Mother Chu’s Vegetarian Kitchen which also had surprisingly non-vegetarian options. I ordered noodles for around 12 AUD.
This place is run by a lady who was very polite in understanding that I am vegetarian and guided me well.
After this, at 9:30 PM, I caught my bus at reached back my hostel to prepare for Day 3.
Expenses for Day 2: (assume 1 AUD = 50 INR)
- Coles Sunscreen – 6.50 AUD – 325 AUD.
- Vegetarian Burger at Hungry Jacks – 10.5 AUD – 525 INR.
- Dinner at Mother Chu’s kitchen – 12 AUD – 600 INR.
- Travel during day around 10 AUD. Deducted from OPAL card.
Total cost for the day: 1450 INR.
